How Marbury vs Madison can Improve Customer Service

Marbury vs Madison provides an excellent case study on a decision-making strategy that can be used to improve customer service.

Back in high school civics, you might have learned about a landmark Supreme Court decision rendered in 1803: Marbury vs Madison. Your teacher probably taught you that the case established the principle of judicial review, which grants the judicial branch of government authority to determine whether a particular law or act of the government violates the Constitution.

And, although the foregoing description of Marbury vs Madison is accurate, it is far from complete. The real — yet typically untaught — lesson of Marbury vs Madison is that it provides one of the best examples of a decision-making strategy that can be applied to customer service.

Here’s what happened. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson, a Democrat-Republican, defeated John Adams, a Federalist. Indeed, the contentious and bitter 1800 election proved to be a bad year for Federalists: not only did the Federalists lose control of the presidency, but they also lost control over Congress.

In an attempt to maintain control of the judicial branch of government, President Adams, during his six-week lame duck session, began frantically appointing numerous Federalist judges and justices of the peace to the federal bench. However, in order for the appointments to be effective, President Adams was required to have commission papers actually delivered to the new judges and justices of the peace. Because this was well before the advent of trains and cars, physically delivering the commissions to the new judges and justices of the peace proved challenging.

One of the new justices of the peace was to be William Marbury, a Federalist; however, Marbury didn’t physically receive his commission by the time President Adams departed office. Indeed, Marbury’s commission sat, undelivered, on the desk of President Jefferson’s Secretary of State, James Madison, who refused to have the commission delivered to Marbury.

Aggrieved by Secretary of State Madison’s refusal to have the commission delivered to him, Marbury sued Madison. Not only that, but Marbury filed his lawsuit directly in the Supreme Court.

Now, as you might also remember from high school civics, the Supreme Court is a court of very limited jurisdiction; in fact, Article III of the Constitution narrowly identifies the types of cases the Supreme Court possesses jurisdiction — that is, the authority — to decide. In 1789, though, Congress enacted the Judiciary Act, that, among other things, “expanded” the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to issue a special type of remedy: something called a Writ of Mandamus. And that’s what Marbury sought from the Supreme Court: a Writ of Mandamus — that is, a court order forcing Secretary of State Madison to deliver the commission to Marbury. The Supreme Court, composed primarily of Federalists, possessed two options. Either:

• rule in favor of Marbury, and require Secretary of State Madison to deliver the commission to Marbury; or

• rule against Marbury, and allow President Jefferson to appoint his own justice of the peace in place of Marbury.

Neither option appealed to the Supreme Court. Why?

• First, if it ruled in favor of Marbury, the Supreme Court lacked the practical ability to actually enforce its decision. President Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison could — and likely would — simply ignore the Court’s decision and, by doing so, make the Supreme Court appear inept and powerless.

• Second, if it ruled in favor of Madison, the Supreme Court would make itself appear weak, as though it were easily intimidated by President Jefferson and his new administration.

In the end, the Supreme Court preferred neither option. Yet it appeared to be limited to only two options: rule in favor, or against, Marbury.

Or was the Supreme Court really confined to only those two options? In other words, did the Supreme Court possess a third option it could pursue in order to avoid an undesirable decision, not to mention a potential constitutional crisis?

The answer is “yes,” and I’ll share the Supreme Court’s brilliant decision next week, when you’ll discover what you didn’t learn in high school civics: why Marbury vs Madison is an excellent case study of a problem-solving strategy that can be applied to customer service.

As always, have a “customerific” week!

Mark